In praise of the 17” MacBook pro

[Passingby]

Ah, the good old days. They get better every year as memories fade.

The 17" throttled like crazy, just like the others. In fact, it didn't throttle enough, evidently, as it burned out more than its share of dGPUs.

Depend which model. Some had a 6700 series GPU that was too hot. Some had the Nvidia 8600 that was faulty and burned down. Some had integrated graphics and dual core, some quad core.

The 17" PowerBook was fun, lasted me a long time. But it had screen burn in. No throttling because G4 only ran at one speed

 

[turbineseaplane]

Well I'm going to assume Apple knows what's best for their business more-so than random people on a forum.

It‘s more nuanced than that.

Back to the Mac Pro example.

Apple was on the verge of completely losing their entire upper end professional audience - for good - if not for finally caving to incredibly easy to spot frustration and demand from that segment.

By the way - Why do you assume those of us commenting on forums aren’t occasionally high up in organizations where these sorts of things are bandied about and perhaps are customers of serious substance for many market demographics?

Just because we are “on a forum” doesn’t mean our opinions aren’t valid and perhaps sourced from places of knowledge that would very much surprise. Not everyone here is “kid in moms basement complaining about Apple” (not at all in fact).

 

[Sanpete]

Depend which model. Some had a 6700 series GPU that was too hot. Some had the Nvidia 8600 that was faulty and burned down. Some had integrated graphics and dual core, some quad core.

The 17" PowerBook was fun, lasted me a long time. But it had screen burn in. No throttling because G4 only ran at one speed

OP was about the 2011 in particular, all with 6700-series GPUs. I still have one that I use to watch sports streams.

You're probably right that technically there was no throttling. It just shut down when it got too hot, which was less welcome than throttling.

 

[nStyle]

By the way - Why do you assume those of us commenting on forums aren’t occasionally high up in organizations where these sorts of things are bandied about and perhaps are customers of serious substance for many market demographics?

"I think any assertions about the market are highly speculative and informed by subjective preference, if I’m being honest."

Because I think that statement is incredibly naive. Apple can see objective facts about how well the 17" was selling as well as doing their own market research and observing trends which is a lot more detailed and involved than making a "highly speculative" decision to nix the 17".

The entire Mac line comprises well below 10% of Apple's total revenue. It was under 6% last quarter. The Mac Pro is obviously the least sought after product probably next to a gigantic laptop.

 

[turbineseaplane]

@nStyle

Let’s just agree to disagree and move on - we are cluttering up the thread at this point.
Cheers

 

[profcutter]

Mine was shockingly stable. Had the hard drive cable issue, but the GPU never failed, and it was easily user serviceable.

 

[nStyle]

Yes it's all pretty pointless anyway considering a 16" MacBook exists and there's no point in fawning over another inch.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Yes it's all pretty pointless anyway considering a 16" MacBook exists and there's no point in fawning over another inch.

I actually think part of Apple’s calculus on the 16 was to help make the model more of a bridge between the 15’s & 17’s of old...which is a nice feature of the 16’s for sure. More screen is definitely nice on a high end pro workstation style of laptop.

 

[Nacho98]

I actually think part of Apple’s calculus on the 16 was to help make the model more of a bridge between the 15’s & 17’s of old...which is a nice feature of the 16’s for sure. More screen is definitely nice on a high end pro workstation style of laptop.

More like unboxing themselves out of the thermal corner they put themselves in fro 2016-2019 - just made sense to shrink the bezels a little while they were at it and modernize it a little.

This 16" machine is great, it's time to let go of the past.

 

[profcutter]

I agree that the 16 is an improvement, but I think what surprised me the most was the quality of the keyboard on the 17. I use an external mechanical keyboard when I’m working, the 17 inch keyboard was plenty good, without need for an external. While the 16 should be more reliable than the previous models, the kind of key travel on the 17 is now a thing of the past, and I regret it.

 

[impulse462]

I’m glad the 16” is a real improvement over the 15”, but it still throttles under heavy loads.

Can you provide a source for this?
[automerge]1577072455[/automerge]

I agree that the 16 is an improvement, but I think what surprised me the most was the quality of the keyboard on the 17. I use an external mechanical keyboard when I’m working, the 17 inch keyboard was plenty good, without need for an external. While the 16 should be more reliable than the previous models, the kind of key travel on the 17 is now a thing of the past, and I regret it.

...its the same keyboard as was on the 15" from that year

 

[profcutter]

Perhaps, I didn't have a 15" that year. It is in no way the same keyboard as a the 16 inch, and that's the point. By shaving off depth of the last 4 years of MacBook pros, the keyboards have suffered, especially compared to the 2011 models.

 

[ScreenSavers]

I was always all for the 17" MacBook Pro. I loved them and used them all the time, eve replacing a mid 2015 15" retina with dedicated graphics for a 17" 2010 for a few months! When the 16" came out I was really encouraged that Apple is hopefully once again catering to people who want a bigger screen. I'll be keeping this 16" for a long time. (Unless if for some unlikely reason they release a 17" retina!)

 

[alter_ohm]

The 17" was a weird machine, it didn't really offer much more compared to the 15" — just the screen resolution and an extra expansion port. Both these features became obsolete when retina displays and thunderbolt arrived.

for me it's all about the screen size. retina is nice to have, but i don't want to read super small text, so retina resolution has no real advantage for me compared to the 1920x1200 pixel resolution of the 17" screen. the resolution was already good enough. i would love to use a new mbp with a 17" matte screen.

and i don't care about the additional weight. our societies are full of overweight and obese people and i am no exception. why is it that people are picky about an additional half a kilo on their laptop when they are carrying 10 kilos or more overweight on their bodies.
besides nowadays even 17" laptop can be made leightweight. see the lg gram 17 (glossy 17", 16:10, 2560x1600) with 2.95 lbs / 1.34kg

 

[Strangedream]

As a former 17" MBP owner I yearn for Apple to bring back these beasts. The sheer size of the screen lets you do so much at once. In fact the 17" MBP is the ultimate desktop replacement, unfortunately these big laptops never sold well compared to other Apple computers.

 

[KenaiAndrews]

Keep in mind that I am typing this on my 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro.

The 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro was in my opinion at the time an achievement coupled tightly with serious cooling deficiencies (among others) that the 2012 model was able to partially improve on.

Weaknesses? Problems? There were many with the 17-inch. Here are a partial few that many of you will be familiar with:

Significantly inadequate cooling. No SD card reader. No HDMI port. An 3/4 Express port that I have yet to take advantage of (though I understand there are many useful peripherals for it, so this may not be a weakness). Read-Write DVD drive (A plus or minus, depends). A thunderbolt port that I have yet to take advantage of. Only 4 GB of RAM standard.

For me, the cooling was the biggest issue with the machine. Heavy tasks like video editing and gaming under Windows bootcamp were constantly affected by throttling. If only they had put in a few holes in the body like they would do with the 2012 version.

So I bought the 2011 17-inch MBP with the matte screen, anti-glare, Intel 2.3 i7 2820-QM and 8 GB RAM (only stock hard drive, they did not have one with an SSD in stock at time of purchase) which despite the cooling and throttling issues for heavy work previously mentioned, performed well for most other tasks. I agree with others here in that it barely had any advantages on paper over its 15-inch sibling, but for me the 17-inch Full HD screen was the big feature. I bought it primarily for work, in the media industry. It was also my first big splash into Mac computers and OS X from a world of PCs and Microsoft Windows.

From both personal and professional standpoints, the bigger screen allowed me be much more productive while being much easier on the eyes. That is its biggest asset to me. And despite plunking down over $5K CAD on (including AppleCare and Final Cut Pro 7), the machine easily earned its keep. It's unique look alone generated countless personal and professional networking opportunities, many of which led to revenue.

I put Windows 7 on via bootcamp and then eventually Windows 10 and despite its documented relatively poor performance, I was thrilled to have the best of both worlds.

I took advantage of AppleCare to have the screen changed in 2013, as well as the motherboard as the 6700 DGPU problem began to surface. Accordingly, the screen is still pretty good today. The performance began to wane somewhere around 2014 or 2015. The battery started slowly deteriorating around that time too. It was still useable, but it was far from its years as the undisputed top of the food chain.

The GPU problem finally hit relatively later around 2017. I had to disable the DGPU and use the onboard Intel HD 3000, which means it is no longer feasible for any heavy work. One of the CPU fans is dead too.

However, this machine with a replaced battery and a Samsung 500 GB 860 EVO SSD has injected new life into its performance. I realize that this is mostly my being used to the pokey stock hard drive for so long, but the machine feels much faster and usable with a $200 investment. I will likely upgrade to 16 GB to max out its performance, but right now I am loving the value I am still getting out of this machine.

It's almost 2020, and I am typing this on my 2011 MacBook Pro with a crippled AMD HD 6750M DGPU.

Unsurprisingly, the 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro occupies a special place in my heart.

 

[leman]

for me it's all about the screen size.

I understand. Unfortunately, Apple's design group has a different vision.

besides nowadays even 17" laptop can be made leightweight. see the lg gram 17 (glossy 17", 16:10, 2560x1600) with 2.95 lbs / 1.34kg

Well, of course. That is a laptop with budget components and sub 13" MBP performance. But if the screen size is the main factor for you, I can understand it attractiveness.

 

[alter_ohm]

That is a laptop with budget components and sub 13" MBP performance.

the performance is sufficiently good, because it uses a 15w 4-core processor (i7-8565U) similar to the cheapest mbp 13" (15w i5-8257U/15w i7-8557U). it's all just the 14nm cpus from intel - stagnation of performance since skylake.
if you don't need the 45w cpu-performance on continous workloads the turbo boost on the 15w processors will make them sufficiently fast on short workloads. gpu performance is worse but i don't need it. (could plugin an external tb3 gpu)

the only budget components i could find are the speakers. the speakers of the mbp's are really better.

 

[leman]

the only budget components i could find are the speakers. the speakers of the mbp's are really better.

Compared to a laptop like MBP (or anything else from the premium segment), everything about the gram is “budget”. Display, chassis(flex issues!), networking... it can be a decent machine if all you need a large display for some office work, but that’s about it.

 

[Bandaman]

I was messing around with the 17" Razer Blade Advanced this week. I was amazed by the 120hz 4K OLED screen with 1ms response time and thought....'Mac users on that Macrumors forum NEED a screen like this.'

The Razer also had a desktop level RTX 2080 running cool. The machine was completely cool and silent. Cmon Apple do it.

Until Apple and NVIDIA stop having beef, it’s not going to happen.

 

[Attonine]

Had a First gen Intel CD 17”. When that died I replaced it with whatever was the current 17”. That finally died 2017 an I got tb15”. At the time I needed the 17” because it was the only MBP that had the PCI port which I used for my 3G modem. Was heavy. A real pain dragging it around airports. Really, weighed a ton. At one point I had both a 17” and 13” and I have to say the 13 ended up getting used more, it was just so much more....portable. At its peak, I had the 17” hooked up to a 30” ACD and a pile of FireWire hard drives Dailey chained and Raided 😁

nNw I’d prefer to have the smallest and lightest, that’s for sure. Apple always do something with the specs which mean I have to jump for the next model up though.

 

[profcutter]

I used the express card port for reading P2 cards. The company gave me a P2 reader as a beta tester, it worked with my HVX200 camera. The HVX was one of the few HD prosumer cameras around, aside from HDV. I also had FireWire 800 drives for media storage. I was anxiously awaiting FW3200... ha ha.

I will say that the Retina display was really what drove me to upgrade early, back in late 2012. Had they continued the 17 with a Retina display, I would have bought that instead.